Global

Climate change represents an "ethical challenge to civilization," said the Vatican's lead representative to an international conference discussing the worldwide impact of climate change.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore told attendees at a church-run conference that the Vatican would help "form consciences and ethical perspectives" on climate change in line with Catholic social teaching and encourage "fairness, impartiality and mutual responsibility" when it came to action to address the environmental threat.

The so-called "luxury bishop" or "Bishop Bling" of Limburg agreed to pay a fine of 20,000 euros rather than contest charges that he perjured himself before the Hamburg District Court.

The court press office announced Monday that Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst had paid the fine, which is about $27,000. Hamburg prosecutors had charged him with lying to the court in a case involving the magazine Der Spiegel.

Tagaytay City, Philippines – Evoking the memories of four women, two of them Maryknollers, who were murdered in El Salvador nearly 33-years-ago, Maryknoll Sister Helen Graham today stressed here the importance of solid theological education as the key to unlocking the prophetic future for Asia’s religious congregations.

Women religious from throughout Asia began to gather here over the weekend as the nation -- and wider world -- was awakening to the vast devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan.

The typhoon, with winds closing in on 200 miles per hour and causing waves more than a story high, ripped through the central section of this nation on Friday, causing widespread destruction, displacement, and some 10,000 deaths.